Menu

The World Turned Upside Down

Donald Trump is president of the United States. The president of the United States is Donald Trump. Our President-elect, Donald Trump.

No matter which order I put the words in, they don’t make sense. They don’t penetrate.

Except, this morning, when the results came in, when the most boring and pointless acceptance speech of all time was given, when people all over my news feeds were crying and sick and scared and upset. When I saw my friends saying that it feels like America doesn’t want them, that it hates them, that they don’t feel safe, because they’re immigrants, because they’re people of color. Their parents did not bring them to this country for this. Their parents did not endure decades of racism and poverty and struggle and sacrifice for this. For a country that says they’re unwelcome, that they should go back where they came from.

I and my disabled friends are afraid, worrying about insurance and the Affordable Care Act and Trump’s policies threatening to directly negatively impact the care we receive. It’s unclear at this point exactly how and how much we’ll be affected, but this is a man who has loudly and repeatedly proclaimed his disdain and disregard for our lives and our basic human rights. He doesn’t care about us. But he’s our president. We have to respect him.

His vice-president, Mike Pence, is no less terrifying. He advocates for conversion therapy for lgbt youth, which is not only ineffective but also inhumane, and leads to more trauma than peace. He was in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood, which, as we should all know by now, provides so much more than abortions. He has, multiple times, voted for things which oppose lgbt rights, including same-sex marriage and “any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status with heterosexual marriage”.He tried to block aid to Syrian refugees in Indiana, which falls neatly in line with all of Trump’s hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric.

It should be apparent at this point, if somehow it wasn’t already, that this is not an unbiased post. I am not an unbiased person. And while I do care about the legalities and political specifics, what I truly care about are the people they’re impacting. My friends, my loved ones, but also the people I’ve never even met who are now living much less stable, much more unsafe lives. The people who don’t deserve any of this, who could never deserve any of this. The people being assaulted, insulted, disrespected by the people who have been validated in all their bigoted, vitriolic beliefs after this election. Hatred has won. Bigotry has won. Fear of that nebulous, unknown “other” has won. Land of the free as long as you’re straight, white, cis, rich. Home of the brave who are never recognized for their bravery, the people who get up every day, leave their houses, work, go to school, just walk down the street, exist in public, despite everything, everything, everything telling them they don’t deserve to.

This is me, just one lone voice in the howling wilderness, telling you that you deserve to. I see you, I respect you, I honor you, and I’m right here with you. I’ll stand behind you, stand up beside you, sit and cry with you, hold your hand, hold you in my arms, anything you need from me. Because while I’m marginalized in multiple ways (I’m a poor disabled woman who really, really likes other women), they’re not the ways that make me genuinely fear for my life or my freedom. I have a platform, albeit a fairly small one, and privilege, a very large amount of it, and I’m through tiptoeing around the things I should be using it for. I have a safety net in the form of close family who understand why this election is so devastating, who voted against the world we’re now forced to live in, who I know would shelter, protect, and hold me up if I needed them to. Not everyone is that lucky, and so, I want to be that for you if I can. This is an open invitation to ask whatever you need from me, whenever you need it, and this is me promising to be there, to give what I have, to do what I can. I love you.

Love is not, despite what the song says, all we need. It’s not even close. But right now, it’s all I have, and I have it in spades. I’m extending it as far outward as it will reach. I hope you can feel it. I hope it can provide even the tiniest modecom of relief in what is a truly awful day, the start of a truly awful four years.

It feels hopeless today. It’s a lead ball in the pit of the stomach, a genuine ache in the heart, a lot of crying, tension held in every part of the body. It’s calling in sick, struggling to navigate relationships with friends and family who voted for this, who claim to love and care about us but then prove that when it really counts, we’re not their priority. Their fear, their hatred, their ignorance trumps (if you’ll excuse the pun) our lived realities. It’s struggling not to be angry with those who didn’t vote, who protest voted, who third party voted. Who didn’t actively cause this, but didn’t actively stand up beside us and fight against it, either. I know. I feel all of this, too, acutely. And I’m not sure where to go from here, or how to go about undoing what’s been done.

But I have claws, and teeth, and a voice. I’m sharpening the former and preparing to unleash the latter. I’m going to fight, scream, sing, write. Whatever I know how to do. I’m going to keep living, if for no other reason than to spite all the Trump supporters and, let’s be real here, the man himself, who would rather I didn’t. I’m going to keep being visible, even though the prospect of that already made me want to crawl out of my skin before any of this happened. And I have a house, with lots of room, where you’re always welcome if you need a tangible safe space.

Words are all I’m really good at, and so this is where I’m starting, but it’s far from where I’m stopping. Right now, I don’t have spare pennies, but when I do, here is a list of possible worthy places to donate them, and maybe, if you have some spare right now, you could consider donating to some of them, too. I’m going to continue to use my voice in whatever way I can, even if it’s as small as a social media or blog post, in support of humanity, love, tolerance, equality. I’m going to keep doing the work of dismantling the systems that have gotten us here: white supremacy, the patriarchy, heteronormativity, all the various isms.

And I’m going to start by saying this: if you voted for Trump, please unfriend me, on whichever platform you’re seeing this. If you didn’t vote at all or if you third party voted, I won’t cry if you unfriend me, but you can also just not talk to me for a while, and stay silent on issues like giving the president the respect he deserves. Because here’s a hint: he doesn’t deserve it. He has done nothing, literally nothing, to prove he deserves it, and a ton to prove he doesn’t. He’s not a good man. He’s not the man I want to be leading my country, and, since he is and since so many of his supporters said the same thing about Obama, I’m going to say this, too: he’s not my president. He isn’t qualified to be my president and he’s done nothing to earn his spot as my president. Don’t tell me to respect him. Don’t tell me to give him a chance. Don’t tell me to honor him. And don’t you dare tell that to any of the minorities he’s denigrated throughout his entire career and particularly throughout his campaign.

This is not the future we deserve. I was never entirely “with her”, but I was always entirely not with him. I voted my conscience, as the saying goes, and everyone else did the same. Now we’re dealing with the fallout, and if you aren’t willing to roll up your sleeves, dig in, and start doing the work, then please do the bare minimum and get out of the way so the rest of us can. Spare me your platitudes and your soft liberalism and your unwarranted optimism. These are going to be long, hard days and I don’t have time for it. Neither does anyone else.

Lastly (for now): if you’re struggling and need help, don’t do anything permanent. Call or text any of these numbers, depending on the specifics of your crisis, and stay alive. Stay safe. Keep fighting. You shouldn’t have to, but we need you. The world needs you. This country needs you, despite the messages you’re being sent right now. And, whether you know me or not, if you read this post and there’s anything at all, whether tangible or intangible, that I can do for you, please, please let me know. You’re not a burden, I have all the time in the world. There’s a contact page with a form you can fill out on this blog, or you can leave a comment, and I can connect with you in a more private setting. I love you. I love you. I love you. I got you. We got each other.